HPE has updated its HPE ProLiant Gen9 server family to support the new Intel Xeon E5-2600 V4 processor family. HPE’s ProLiant Gen9 servers are extremely popular and the update is what we would expect from one of Intel’s premier launch partners. Aside from the launch announcements with the new processors and new NVMe SSDs, HPE is hlighlighting the HPE Persistent Memory portfolio. This is not 3D XPoint, instead these are NVDIMMs that can move data from RAM to NAND in the event of a power failure. We previously reviewed a similar NVDIMM technology, however the HPE solutions are generations newer. Here is the HPE press release.

HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9

PALO ALTO, CA–(Mar 31, 2016) – Today, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) (NYSE: HPE) debuted new compute platforms with built-in support for Persistent Memory, a technology that combines the performance of high-speed memory and the persistence of storage to deliver new levels of application performance. HPE also announced new HPE ProLiant Gen9 server options and related solutions to help enterprise customers modernize their data centers.

“As the industry’s leading server vendor, HPE is committed to bringing new infrastructure innovations to the market that enable organizations to derive more value from their data,” said Peter Schrady, senior vice president and general manager HPE ProLiant Servers and Enterprise & SMB Segments. “We are delivering on that commitment by delivering a complete Persistent Memory hardware and software ecosystem into our server portfolio, as well as delivering enhancements that will allow customers to increase agility, protect critical information and deliver new applications and services more quickly than ever before.”

HPE Compute for Hybrid Workloads and EnvironmentsNew solutions and technologies for the HPE ProLiant Gen9 portfolio provide organizations with a range of compute innovations that are designed for optimized performance in a hybrid infrastructure environment:

HPE Persistent Memory. The new HPE ProLiant Gen9 servers are optimized for the first product in the HPE Persistent Memory portfolio, the HPE 8GB NVDIMM. This technology is designed to accelerate database and analytic workloads and is ideal for any applications that are constrained by traditional storage bottlenecks. The HPE 8GB NVDIMM is designed around industry-standard NVDIMM-N technology, working with standards bodies such as JEDEC and SNIA, and includes back-up power from the HPE Smart Storage Battery, which supports up to 16 NVDIMMs for moving data from DRAM to Flash when power is lost.HPE is working with industry operating system and application providers to enable the software ecosystem for HPE Persistent Memory offerings and to simplify implementation for HPE ProLiant server customers

New Intel® Xeon platform. Designed to support up to 22 cores and memory speeds of up to 2400MT/s, the new Intel Xeon® E5-2600 v4 processor offers up to 25 percent performance gains for HPE ProLiant Gen9 servers. The Intel® Xeon E5-2600 v4 processors include virtualization enhancements, added security and improved orchestration capabilities to help customers better manage shared platform resources. With these new processors, HPE has achieved several new #1 server benchmark performance positions in multiple categories, including results with Industry-First Big Data TPC Express Benchmark Big Bench (TPCx-BB), SPECjbb2015-Composite, SPECjbb2015-Distributed, and TPC-H.

State of the art solid state drives (SSDs). HPE NVMe SSDs are compact, economical and offer up to 2TB of storage in a flexible package that includes Express Bay for front access to drives that are designed for big-ticket jobs, including online transaction processing, business intelligence and Big Data analytics.

“The new Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 v4 product family offers customers the performance, orchestration and security features they need to adopt cloud computing with confidence,” said Lisa Spelman, vice president of Marketing, Intel Data Center Group. “Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Intel have been strong collaborators since the earliest days of our server business, and innovative products like the ProLiant Gen9 portfolio will accelerate enterprise’s transition to the cloud.”

HPE also offers consulting and support services to help customers accelerate their journey to hybrid infrastructure. From strategy to deployment to ongoing optimization and support, HPE has the expertise to partner with customers at every stage.

“As the biggest communications service provider in Turkey, Turkcell needs agility in order to quickly provide rich services to our customers, so we are focused on modernizing our data center to gain a competitive edge,” said Murat Akkaya, Infrastructure Resource Planning Expert, Turkcell. “With HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 servers, powered by the new Intel Xeon E5-2600 v4 processors and game-changing HPE Persistent Memory, our compute journey has taken a critical leap forward, resulting in reduced deployment time for new business services as well as increased database transactions by up to 2x faster.”

Pricing and Availability

New HPE ProLiant Gen9 server options and related solutions are now available through HPE and worldwide channel partners. The HPE partner finder can be used to find authorized channel partners.

Pricing will vary based on HPE ProLiant Gen9 server model and customer configurations.

HPE 8GB NVDIMM will be available in May 2016 for initial support on HPE ProLiant DL360 and DL380 Gen9 servers with Intel E5-2600 v4 processors.

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Product and Performance Information

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Results based on Intel internal measurements. See Tests/Configuration below. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more complete information visit http://www.intel.com/performance/datacenter.

Test/Configurations:

Up to 21% on performance gain claim based on OLTP brokerage and warehouse workloads:

Intel’s next generation Broadwell-EP family of Xeon processors that will power the enterprise market is headed for launch in Q1 2016. The Broadwell-EP family will include the latest Xeon E5-2600 V4 processors, that will be aimed at the server and workstation market (Efficient Performance 2S/Performance), remaining compatible on the current generation Grantley-EP platform. The details regarding the Broadwell-EP SKUs have been leaked by Chinese forums which show the top-to-bottom Xeon V4 lineup.

The leaked information consists of details about 12 upcoming, Xeon E5-2600 V4 processors (branded under the Broadwell-EP family). These include the flagship Xeon E5-2699 V4 processor which packs insane specs and offer up to 22 cores to users who demand that kind of performance for the respective workloads in the workstation market. The list of these processors can be found below (Do note that there could be more SKUs in the line up that we don’t know about but the ones listed below are confirmed):

Intel Xeon E5-2699 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2698 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2697 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2695 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2690 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2689 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2687 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2680 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2678 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2666 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2660 V4

Intel Xeon E5-2650 V4

The top brass in the Broadwell-EP family consists of the Xeon E5-2699 V4 and the Xeon E5-2698 V4 processors which feature improved specifications over their predecessors in terms of core count. First up, we are looking at the flagship offering in the family known as the Xeon E5-2699 V4 which features the highest core count Intel has offered to date. With 22 cores and a multi-threaded design offering 44 threads, the chip packs insane CPU performance. With 2.5 MB cache scattered across each core, the die packs 55 MB L3 cache and is clocked at a range of 2.2 GHz base clock and up to 3.6 GHz boost clock. The entire chip has a TDP of 145W with workstation offerings of the chip going up to 160W.

The Xeon E5-2698 V4 processor features a core clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 3.5 GHz across 20 cores which are hyper-threaded down to 40 threads. The CPU block is partitioned into several cache blocks with each core housing 2.5 MB L3 cache which equals a total of 50 MB L3 cache on this processor. The maximum core clock is suggested around 3.5 GHz (boost) while the chip has a TDP range of 135W. Compared to the E5-2698 V3 which had 16 cores, 32 threads, 40 MB L3 cache and a core clock ranging from 2.3 GHz to 3.6 GHz, the V4 is an incremental increase since it’s also based on an improved 14 nm process node. Both processors will be able to support DDR4 (Quad Channel) memory with speeds of (up to) 2400 MHz. Details for the remaining chips are not fully disclosed but some bits and pieces are known which can be seen in the table posted below.

The Grantley and Brickland platform which will support the new Broadwell-EP and EX chip models (respectively) has already spanned the market for three generations. These include Ivy Bridge EP/EX V2, Haswell-EP/EX V3 and the latest Broadwell-EP/EX V4 processors. Broadwell-EP/EX V4 processors will be the last processors to arrive as Intel phases out their current platform and move to the new Purely Platform for Skylake and Cannonlake processors. The new Broadwell-EP/EX series will have a launch schedule as detailed below:

Broadwell-EP E5 V4 family of processors will be landing in the first half of 2016. This will consist of the Broadwell EP series of processors for one. Which include the Xeon E5 1600 v4 and E5 2600 v4 family of processors for both single and dual socket motherboards. The E5 1600 v4 series will have upto 8 cores whieas the 2600v4 series will rock upto 22 cores and have full support of DDR4 2400 memory. The platform will be compatible with the C610 series chipset. The Broadwell-EP 4S platform (upto 4 sockets on one motherboard) consisting of the Xeon E5 4600 v4 will be launched sometime in Q2 2016.

Broadwell-EP E7 V4 family of processors, constituting the Broadwell-EX platform, and the nomenclature range of E7 4800v4 and E7 8800 v4 will be launched in Q2 2016. It will also be compatible with the existing Brickland platform.

The Xeon Phi X200 series of products (Knights Landing) will be available in Q3 2016. Knight’s Landing was built on the 14nm Process and uses modified silvermont cores (x86 ofcourse). It is also one of the first mass produced components developed for this market segment that features stacked DRAM.

We have also seen some benchmarks of the new chips which include the 20 core Xeon E5-2698 V4 and the 14 core Xeon E5-2680 V4 chips. Both chips are marked as QS (Qualification Samples) so final clock speeds and the performance numbers are expected to change when these chips are available to enterprise users. The Xeon E5-2600 V4 processors will be ready to ship in Q1 2016 followed by the 4S and 8S enterprise solutions in mid 2016.